So, I was recently in Vegas where I was served my mango Mimosa’s by a Shaq look alike while laying by the pool at the Palms. It was these alcohol fuelled mornings which normally planned what we were going to do that same evening. Upon reading various what’s on guides we discovered we arrived in somewhat of a dead spot for gigs. Nevertheless we persisted and found a Skrillex gig on at the Hard Rock Café on the strip. The same night Diplo was playing at Rain night club in the hotel we were staying in. So we had it planned Palms pool party, followed by Skrillex then back to the Palms for Diplo.
We made our way across to the strip for Skrillex, where we were greeted with punk kids and ravers. Well, they looked like ravers in their fluffy flared pants, glow sticks and body paint. We got inside after a few security checks to find people crowded around the stage bobbing their heads like they were at a Jack Johnson concert. Don’t get me wrong, Jack Johnson is great… I just thought with the music Skrillex produces the crowd would have been a little more receptive. I quickly came to the conclusion that people weren’t actually there for skrillex’s music, they were more there because he is a little alternative himself. The ravers didn’t appear to even know what a rave was except for their flashing lights which they twirled constantly at the back of the crowd. Sadly the crowd was actually facing them and not the stage. Regardless of the boring crowd we decided to embrace the music and have a good time. Skrillex was amazing and delivered a great set. After he played we decided to get straight in a cab to go over to Diplo.
We arrive at Rain and make our way to the bar where we ask the bar tender what time Diplo be playing. She replies “in an hour” so at 1am. We thought excellent we’ll have a few more drinks and have our selves more of a good time. We discovered the DJ who was playing hadn’t updated his CD wallet from two years ago and couldn’t even beat match using Serato. FYI I’m not claiming I can mix either, but in a club you would think the person could actually not make a train wreck out of two songs. The crowd didn’t seem to mind so I thought to myself maybe I should be less judgemental.
After numerous drunken conversations with my partner, he bumps into the people standing next to us and strikes up a conversation (is there a better way to meet new people?!) The music was loud and they were from Belfast, add this with alcohol and you get a group of people pretending they could hear and understand the other person. I look down at my phone and see its ten to one and I say to our new friends “Oh Diplo is on in ten minutes” To which their response was “He cancelled earlier today.” I was devastated but still had hope so we waited. 1:30 came and I declared he wasn’t coming; the music was terrible so we called it a night. On the way out I asked the people selling the tickets why he had cancelled. The lady responded with “who the fuck is Diplo?!” I was taken back but proceeded to tell her it was the person she was selling tickets for. She looked puzzled and declared it was only her job to sell ticket not to know who was playing or not playing. I thought at this point it was best to walk off instead of continuing our conversation.
The line for the club curved around to where our lift was for the room so I told people if they were lining up for Diplo don’t bother because he’s not playing. Turns out we and our friends from Belfast were the only four people in the place who even knew who Diplo was. We still had a great time and got up to our room and had a good giggle about how the night turned out.
